Source identified1
Read & copy
“How great my grief, my joys how few, Since first it was my fate to know thee!”
Meaning & context
The speaker measures a relationship by the imbalance between grief and joy, making recollection itself the structure through which attachment and loss are assessed.
Source details
“How Great My Grief,” Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), Project Gutenberg #3168. It is a dramatic lyric statement and is not automatically read as direct autobiography.
